HAKA! Speaking with every move

If you think that haka is just about a stirring start to a rugby game, check out HAKA! the exhibition when it opens early September at the Auckland Centre of the National Library at the bottom of Stanley Street.

This exhibition shows the tradition of haka and its continual importance in today’s world through photographs from the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, and great film footage and audio from a range of sources.

HAKA! gives New Zealanders and visitors an opportunity to increase their understanding of haka and how it extends beyond the sports field.

Deeply embedded in Maori culture, language, and identity, haka brings visitors on to a marae; celebrates a wedding; marks death at a tangi; delivers a message to the government; recalls an important event; and challenges an opponent.

Where something important is to be said, haka helps say it.

Experts on haka add their insights to the exhibition. Professor Timoti Karetu explains haka as, “a message, born of the soul, spoken by the mouth and given full expression to by the body.”

Images of the Maori Battalion haka for the King of Greece in Egypt and the 1905 “The Originals” All Blacks performing before a test against Scotland, contrast with contemporary shots of haka from the modern All Blacks and the winning 2011 Matatini kapa haka team in full flight.